smallchou.com/blog

Seth Godin, as he so often does, has a great post about the use of exclusion in building brand. One-liner: sometimes (often) limiting the quantity/availability of your product (and letting people know it’s limited) can provide positive impact in many ways.

It’s a great point and something that I’ve been thinking a lot about in terms of LinkedIn and products in general. I think it’s particularly pertinent for Internet companies, where so often the cost of inclusion is extremely small. Letting one extra user in the door usually isn’t contributing significantly to your cost, but maybe it’s more beneficial to leave him out (and not only that, let everyone know up-front that he will be left out).

People, deep down, really want to feel special and you want them to aspire to be a part of whatever you’re building. Sometimes if you make the party open to all, everyone decides to stay home.